Canada is curbing immigration — but this lawyer says newcomers still drive our economy – Toronto Star

Last year, Canada’s population grew by nearly one million people, according to Statistics Canada. Almost all of them were newcomers: refugees fleeing persecution, post-secondary students in pursuit of a Canadian diploma and job experience, farm workers with the country’s agricultural temporary foreign worker program.

Just last summer, months after U.S. tech giants like Meta and Amazon were laying off thousands of qualified tech professionals, then-immigration minister Sean Fraser launched a program to give U.S. H1-B visa holders a shot at Canadian work permits. Within 48 hours, 10,000 applications had been submitted.

But Ottawa appears to be tapping the brakes on its ambitious immigration targets. Earlier this month, the federal government announced it would “stabilize” immigration levels at 500,000 per year starting in 2026, despite years of continually raising its target. Meanwhile, Northern College, an Ontario post-secondary institution, has revoked around 700 acceptance letters from international students over the past year due to what it described as a lack of local jobs and housing.

These decisions come in the face of stubbornly high housing and food costs affecting everyone living on Canadian soil: permanent residents, citizens and undocumented alike. Stephen Green, managing partner at immigration law firm Green and Spiegel, spoke to the Star about the current economic — and educational — landscape for immigrants from his Toronto office earlier this week:

There is an argument that amid competition for housing and jobs in Canada, immigration at our current level is unsustainable. Do you buy this argument?

I don’t buy that at all. First, unlike some countries like the U.S., where they have a lottery system based on country of origin, we have a really rigorous and thought-out selection system based on “human capital.” They look at a newcomer’s age, their education, whether they’ve worked or studied in Canada, whether they have family in Canada, whether they can speak English and French — that sort of stuff. We’re selecting immigrants based on a model that economists and various policy experts have said are considered very important factors.

I think the only major issue is that a lot of people in their forties have a very difficult time immigrating to Canada because of the point system. An applicant’s age is about 30 per cent of it. So if you are 45 years old, you run a really successful business outside of Canada and you want to come here, you’re going to have a tough time. But I don’t buy the notion about jobs. Even at my firm, we’ve been trying to find some skilled workers for over two years. We can’t find people. And I’m hearing from the construction industry that there are no workers. We have a really serious problem finding carpenters and plumbers — and these are the people who are supposedly going to help us with our housing crisis.

So how do those folks fare in Canada’s immigration system?

It’s very difficult for them under the point system. A lot of those skilled workers don’t speak great English and don’t have a great education. The trades have a very difficult time immigrating, and the government has always known that, and they’ve struggled to try to make the system better. But the real problem is that the provinces are responsible for licensing, and the feds are responsible for bringing people in. There are situations where you may have a carpenter that will make it through the immigration system, but then they can’t get their licence as a carpenter.

Look at doctors. Look at nurses. We make it so difficult for these people to get the proper licence. You can’t tell me that a doctor that’s graduated from Harvard and wants to practise in Canada — or a pharmacist from Europe — has to go through a horrendous licensing process. It’s wrong, and that was really holding up the ability of individuals that immigrate to our country to really perform their professions.

During the first years of the pandemic, there was some talk about getting more doctors from abroad into Canada’s health-care system. It sounds like the issues haven’t improved.

It’s a little better. They’re moving way too slow. It’s interesting, on the medical side — it costs the province more money to license more doctors. And the doctors want to protect their turf a bit. But I think Canadians have had it. You have people that can’t find family doctors, that can’t find specialists, and they’re saying there’s no reason why doctors should go through such craziness to get licensed.

International students have gotten a lot of attention from the federal government recently. First there was last summer’s acceptance letter scam, then Northern College’s recent revocation of 700 international student acceptances. Can you explain what’s going on?

Former immigration minister Jason Kenney once said foreign students were the best future immigrants to Canada. Why? They pay for their own education. It’s a funny word — but they become Canadianized much easier than other immigrants. Our foreign students fund my kids. They pay $40,000 to $50,000 a year to go to the University of Toronto, when Canadian-born students pay $7,000 to $8,000. But the federal government only let foreign students go to schools that have been designated “learning institutions” — by provinces. And the provinces have failed Canadians by designating far too many that don’t deserve it.

As for the fraudulent letters — the issue is that post-secondary institutions have asked for help finding students in foreign countries, and there is no compliance on them. I was in Chandigarh in India recently. It would blow your mind. Massive billboards by immigration consultants promising to get students into schools. The problem is that the Canadian government knows about it, but they can’t enforce anything because it’s happening in a foreign country. The foreign country can’t do anything.

What’s made it worse is that the Canadian government lifted a requirement that immigration consultants be permanent residents or citizens. Now, if I’m living in India, I can take an online course to become an immigration consultant and the college regulating immigration consultants can’t go after me.

Do you think more institutions will start reneging on international student acceptances, as Northern College has done?

I don’t know. But I hope the provinces will look at those institutions and make them understand what they did to these students. You have to understand that in places like Chandigarh, the parents of these students are selling everything possible to make their child’s life better than theirs. If you get accepted to this college that you mentioned and you’ve got your plane ticket, you’ve booked everything — and they say sorry, you can’t come? I mean, that’s bad.

Have you noticed an increasing reluctance by international students to come to Canada?

Our government has made some statements against certain countries in the Parliament of Canada, and I think it has tremendously affected the way they look at Canada now. So we’ll have to see how the government is going to manage that. I think, regardless of whatever India may or may not have done, I think there were different ways to handle that.

We depend on immigration for economic growth. If Canada decided to flatten or even lower immigration targets, what kind of effect do you think that would have on our economy?

It would be disastrous. Here’s something that most Canadians don’t have a clue about. Do you know what a fellow in a hospital is?

No, I don’t.

That’s someone who is an expert in their area of medicine from abroad, or even in Canada. Our medical system relies so heavily on these doctors from abroad, but we pay them 70 per cent less than what a doctor in Canada makes. Five years ago, the Saudi government pulled 800 fellows home after a dispute with us, and the Canadian government worried the medical system would crash.

Immigration is so important to Canada. It is a very emotional area of the law because, a lot of the time, people don’t understand the effects. They make decisions based on what they think is happening — that an immigrant is taking their job, or that temporary agriculture workers get paid less than Canadians. They aren’t.

Temporary foreign workers are tied to specific employers, and it can be very difficult for them to report labour violations. Is the federal government trying to change that?

On the one hand, the government has a compliance regime that puts a lot of stress on workers — on the other hand, they have to ensure there is an employer-employee relationship, and ensure there are parameters on what workers will do. It’s a difficult balance, and the government is aware of that. They’ve heard those concerns. Like all of us, they want to make the system better. But some people take advantage of it, and we have to look at how to prevent abuses. Maybe, for now, a restricted work permit is the best way to prevent the abuses in our system.

Source: Canada is curbing immigration — but this lawyer says newcomers still drive our economy – Toronto Star